


as long as you'll have me

by Atsuki-hime (Atsuki_hime)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Swearing, grief group, referenced miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2056221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atsuki_hime/pseuds/Atsuki-hime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>castiel wonders if he will ever be able to smile like dean does again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as long as you'll have me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Destiel Ficlet Challenge on Tumblr. My prompt: Person A meets Person B at a support group. Triggers are in the tags, please be forewarned. Also, this writing style is new and different to me. The structure is intentional.

there is no rain or thunder or ominous gray skies.

the sun is shining, there isn't a single cloud in the sky, and the birds are chirping.

castiel thinks it's the perfect day to have a picnic, or ride a bike, or go to the zoo.

around him, people are crying sobbing weeping, but castiel has no tears.

the casket is laid into the ground, and castiel decides to go to the zoo.

-

four weeks have passed, and castiel has not returned to work.

he is currently in his bathrobe, making bacon at three in the morning.

gabriel appears in the doorway, obviously weary of castiel's antics. castiel does not care.

_get some help_ , gabriel commands. castiel starts humming stayin' alive.

_you're not well_ , gabriel continues, and castiel loads a plate with bacon, not bothering to drain the grease.

_he's gone and you're suffering_ , gabriel insists, and castiel can hear his heart breaking.

castiel offers gabriel a slice of bacon.

-

six weeks have passed and castiel returns home from his first day back at work four hours earlier than usual.

he is sweating, visions of blank eyes and red lined tile coming in waves.

he is sick before he reaches the toilet.

gabriel finds him huddled in the closet. gabriel pulls him out, throws his vomit stained clothes in the trash and runs him a bath.

castiel soaks until he's a prune. when he gets out, gabriel is waiting for him.

_i need help_ , castiel admits, and gabriel nods.

-

castiel is the second to last person to show up to the grief group.

he takes his seat in the circle of chairs with the six other people there. only one seat remains.

the people chatter amongst themselves quietly. the person next to castiel extends his hand and introduces himself as ash. castiel does not accept the hand.

the last seat is finally taken by a bow legged man in a leather jacket. he introduces himself as dean, announces they have a new member. he asks castiel for his name.

castiel stands up and leaves the building.

-

gabriel is not pleased.

-

gabriel drops castiel at the next meeting, promises not to show up one second before the end of the meeting.

castiel is grumpy.

at the meeting, castiel sits next to ash again. ash grins at him.

castiel does not return the favor.

dean is the last to show up, again. this time, he does not ask for castiel's name.

the first person begins to talk.

castiel learns how jo harvelle is coping with the loss of her father.

-

jo's father died in a gas station robbery.

jodi's husband and son went to the post office and were t-boned by a teenager who ran a red light.

ash's wife, pamela, has been in a coma for three years after crashing her harley.

becky's fiancé, chuck, left her in the middle of the night without a word.

charlie's wife, dorothy, had been killed in a bombing while deployed overseas.

bobby does not speak during the entire session.

castiel introduces himself, but does not say anything else.

dean smiles.

-

_it's nice to see you back_ , dean tells castiel at the end of the meeting.

castiel decides to come back next week.

-

two weeks later, they draw colored pieces of paper out of a hat and are paired off.

they are supposed to find three words that describe something they have in common.

castiel is paired with bobby.

the two men stare at each other with equally stoic faces for five whole minutes without a word.

castiel notices dean peering at them over his partner's shoulders.

when the exercise is over, they return to the circle and say their three words.

bobby is up before castiel. no one expects bobby to say anything. he has not said one word since first showing up to the meetings nearly six months ago.

instead, bobby grunts, _we're both idjits_.

there is silence. 

castiel can hear someone cough in another room.

dean's grin is contagious.

-

sometimes, castiel thinks he's getting better. sometimes, he thinks the grief group is working for him.

then, he wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of his lungs, begging jimmy to wake up.

gabriel barrels into the room and has to pin castiel down, has to ground him to reality.

castiel can only see blank eyes and blood and blood and blood.

castiel screams until he passes out.

-

after five weeks, castiel tells the group his story.

jimmy was ( _no, cas, he still is_ , dean says) his brother. his twin brother. from the womb, they were inseparable.

jimmy was the only person castiel could tell anything to and not be judged for it.

jimmy was the first person castiel came out to. jimmy took him in when his family disowned him.

jimmy had a loving wife who was his everything. she was four months pregnant with their daughter when she miscarried.

amelia couldn't handle the loss of her daughter. she fell into a deep depression. three months after their daughter's death, jimmy found amelia in the bath tub with a sliced femoral artery.

jimmy couldn't take it. castiel tried and tried and tried. he tried to help jimmy, to pull him back from the pain of losing his wife and daughter.

castiel tried to save jimmy.

castiel found jimmy in the same bathroom amelia took her life in, soaking in a pool of his own blood.

jimmy had blank, blank eyes.

jimmy was smiling.

castiel failed.

-

castiel is crying for the first time after jimmy's death, in front of a group of almost-strangers.

he hasn't cried in front of gabriel, the only other brother who accepted him for who he is.

he hasn't cried in private.

but here, he cries and sobs and hiccups and weeps.

time seems to slow down as the pain comes in tidal waves, wracking castiel's body with blows of sorrow and grief and mourning.

he doesn't remember when dean kneels in front of him, takes castiel's hands into his own, and tells the rest of the group that the session is over.

the room clears out and it's just dean and castiel.

castiel weeps until there are no more tears.

dean holds his hands the entire time.

-

castiel doesn't remember when he stopped crying. the room has been nearly silent for a while now. castiel can hear dean's steady breathing at his feet.

dean starts to talk.

he tells castiel how mary died when he was four in a fire, and how john never quite recovered from that.

he tells castiel how sammy had to rely on him for everything - food, shelter, comfort, support.

he tells castiel how all he wanted was to make john proud.

eventually, that lead to alcoholism at the age of fourteen. there was nothing like having a drink with your pops to get the bonding going.

one sunday morning, dean was hungover and john was still drunk. sammy needed a ride home from a friend's house he had spent the night at. dean wouldn't wake up, john wanted the damn phone to stop ringing.

john went to pick sammy up at ten am.

on the way back, john was speeding. ran a red light. crashed into another car.

john died.

the driver of the other car died.

sammy was paralyzed from the waist down.

dean didn't wake up to all of the missed messages on the answering machine until after two pm.

-

castiel wonders if he will ever be able to smile like dean does again.  
-

castiel is a private man.

castiel continues to return to the meetings. he does not talk as much as the rest of the group.

the only one who says any less than castiel is bobby.

castiel is able to find a certain kind of peace when he listens to the other members speak of their losses and how they cope.

castiel is able to find solace in the fact that he is not alone.

castiel is able to see a spark in dean's eyes when they look at each other.

castiel likes to look at dean.

-

today is not a good day.

castiel did not sleep well. every time he closed his eyes, he saw jimmy's blank stare.

castiel runs on fumes for the entire day. he does not eat. he feels miserable.

he hates jimmy for leaving him. he hates jimmy for making him feel this way.

castiel contemplates skipping the grief group meeting for the night to go drink the pain away.

he gets a text message.

**see u at 6**

it's from dean.

castiel goes to the meeting.

-

the meeting finishes and castiel does not feel any better. dean notices. he asks castiel to stay behind.

dean does not say anything at first. he tidies the room up, just like he always does. castiel stands and watches.

when dean is done, he grins at castiel and says, _let's go._

castiel is confused, until dean leads him to a classic muscle car. a 1967 chevrolet impala. he tells castiel to get in.

castiel hesitates.

_trust me_ , dean says.

castiel does.

-

castiel should have never listened to dean.

instead of going home and taking enough sleeping pills to sleep for a week, he is standing in front of jimmy's grave for the first time since the funeral.

castiel is furious.

oddly enough, castiel is not furious with dean. he is furious with jimmy.

it gets harder to breathe, harder to keep the burning lump in his throat from escaping, harder to stop the stinging in his eyes.

he wants to run.

dean puts his hand on castiel's shoulder, grounding him.

dean says, _it's okay._

so castiel releases.

-

you left me alone, jimmy. you left me by myself. why didn't you think of me? why didn't you stay here with me? it could have got better. we could have made it through this. do you remember all that pain you felt when amelia died? the sorrow, the guilt, the agony. you took the coward's way out to get away from it, and now i'm the one who has to suffer. you put all your suffering on me jimmy, you fucking bastard. you were my best friend. you were my world. i loved you more than anything. i would have done anything for you, and you fucking left me out in the god damn cold. i tried to save you, jimmy, i really did. i tried so hard but you didn't come back to me. you missed amelia so much, you mourned your daughter so, so much… i know you just wanted to be with them again, jimmy, but why didn't you think about me? why, jimmy? god fucking damn it, i fucking hate you so fucking much, i'm all alone jimmy what am i supposed to do now? what the fuck am i supposed to do?

-

_you're not alone, cas_. when did dean start using that nickname for him?

when did dean start holding castiel like this?

_i hate him so much_. castiel sobs. castiel tries not to think how pathetic he must look right now with his head tucked underneath another grown man's chin, crying in the middle of a cemetery as the sun sets.

_that's okay, man_. dean runs his fingers through castiel's hair. _that's perfectly fine._

they stay like that for a while.

-

dean takes castiel home.

castiel does not get out of the car immediately.

castiel looks at dean and says, _what am i supposed to do now?_

dean replies, _you heal._

but it's hard. it's so, so hard.

_it's okay,_ dean says. _i'll be with you, as long as you'll have me._

_i would like that_ , castiel says. dean smiles.

castiel smiles back.


End file.
